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The major bone of contention

May 2, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By Keith Schell

There is a saying, “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” and that’s very true. Many of their attitudes towards various subjects are polar opposites of each other and while the various differences between men and women are intended to fill in each other’s emotional gaps and make the sum total greater than the individual parts, some of these differences in attitude can create major bones of contention amongst an otherwise happy couple. 

And one of the biggest bones of contention between men and women is: 

The house. 

Men and women tend to see the house in a completely different light.  

Women tend to see the house as confinement; Men tend to see the house as security. 

And what I mean by that is that women are social creatures who see the house as something confining they want to get out of; whereas men are solitary creatures who see the house as something secure they want to get home to. 

In the attitudinal differences of the sexes, a man’s home truly is his castle and a woman’s home truly is her nest. 

The problem is, if Momma Bird hasn’t been taken out of the nest for a while by Poppa Bird, sometimes she may begin to see the nest as her prison. And that’s when Poppa Bird really starts to get chirped at by Momma Bird about it.  

A woman wants to take flight from her prison for the evening, but a man wants to hunker down in his fortress for the night. And this constant tug-of-war in attitudes can sometimes be a major source of friction between a husband and a wife.  

How many times do you hear a woman say to a man after he gets home from work “You never take me anyplace?” And they’re absolutely right. Men never take them anyplace. 

But why? 

Being complicated creatures, women tend to overthink things. In their continual quest to understand the workings of the male mind (if and when it works), they are at a loss to understand the reason why their man refuses to take them anyplace. 

But men are simple creatures and there’s actually a very straightforward manly answer to their woman’s “you never take me anyplace” complaint: after coming home exhausted from a hard day at work, men just don’t want to go anyplace! 

By ‘Man logic’, if we do go out someplace that evening, we’re just going to end up back at the house at the end of the night anyway so why bother going out in the first place? 

A man has his priorities established; everything he really cares about he has under his roof at that particular moment: his wife, his kids, his big screen TV. (And during the hockey playoffs, that order of priorities is reversed. Women, please take note of this and make allowances for it.) 

A man’s home truly is his castle. And when a man finally trudges home to his humble castle at the end of the workday war, he has fought the good fight all day and, utterly exhausted, wants to secure the perimeter and entrench himself in his castle fortress for the night. 

He pulls up ye old drawbridge, shutters ye old windows, kicks off ye old work boots, and after eating dinner hunkers down for the evening to unwind in ye old easy chair and sits back to relax with a beer and a bag of nachos to watch the hockey playoffs on ye old big-screen TV. (And while he might not say it, many is the time he wishes that ye old wife would just clam up so he can watch the playoffs in peace and quiet!)

And for the duration of the night, as far as the man is concerned, the rest of the outside world can go to the devil. He is on furlough from the battle of life until the next day, when he has to muster up his strength, courage and resolve to go out and engage in the battle of life yet again. 

If a wife wants her husband to take her someplace, she may have to approach the subject with her husband in the same way you make an appointment to go see a medical specialist: You have to schedule the appointment a couple of months in advance. That gives the husband enough time to steel himself for the upcoming event. And because the scheduled event is so far in the future, the husband can’t see the harm in agreeing to the wife’s request just to get the wife to stop nagging him in the present. But once he agrees to it the wife has got him; he knows the event is coming and when it finally gets here he knows he agreed to it a few months ago so he can’t make up an excuse to weasel out of it (if he knows what’s good for him) when the scheduled time to go out with his wife is finally upon him.  

And so they go out and have a nice time and the wife is appeased until she starts to feel confined again. And another cycle begins. 

This is the way it has always been and this is the way it will always be. 

Happiest at home after the workday, Dad would sometimes have to be verbally crowbarred out of his easy chair when Mom wanted him to take her someplace special. But once they got there Dad usually enjoyed where Mom wanted them to go. 

So, ladies, as you get older you might think you have a stay-at-home lump for a husband, but rest assured that everything in his world is just the way he wants it and just the way he likes it. And remember, you are a significant part of that world. 

And men, agree to a get-out-of-the-house opportunity with your wife every now and then. She deserves it.   

And you’ll both be happier for it! 

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